Graphic: Lawrence Berkeley Labs
The Department of Energy awarded $126.6 million in grants today to projects that will pump 1 million tons of CO2 into underground caverns at sites in California and Ohio. The grants are subject to approval from Congress. When private money is included, the amount spent on the projects will be about $180 million over 10 years, the DOE said. So there’s still time to write a scathing letter to your US Senator or Congressperson to tell them they’d may as well just pour money down the hole and save the trouble.
Will you have carbon dioxide underfoot? Lawrence Berkeley Lab studies the locations of power plants, oil wells, and geological formations for storing carbon dioxide. Hopefully DOE will divert a little bit of money towards LBL to help in making a US map that actually represents our borders and Great lakes well. Puget Sound and much of the Great Lakes are smoothed into oblivion. Massachusetts has gained a landfill in the ocean. Maybe this is the “homogeneity adjusted” US Map? Maybe this is what the USA will look like in the future once we bloat the underworld with CO2?
Even some environmental groups call carbon sequestration “a scam”, claiming that it is too expensive and uncertain to be competitive with non-coal alternatives like wind and solar.
Of course the concept is so simple, thanks to DOE kids web, even a child can understand it. Got something you don’t want mom to see? is your room a mess? Shove it under the bed!
I just hope nobody drops a shipment of expired Mentos down the wrong hole.
Get kids to drink more soda by lowering the price in half and installing pop machines only in classrooms, no where else. You would clean up the boogy man in record time. Schools would once again rise to the respected level they once occupied as institutions of learning and saviors of the world. Attendance would increase as a positive side benefit. You could even give the carbon credits to the parents as an incentive to get them to send their kids to school every day.
Why aren’t you bloggers answering the call?
Some of us just don’t have any extra cash. (I wish I had invested in corn futures about 4 months ago)
To Bruce Cobb (05:52:05) : Yes, I wish they would put that 126 million into HRG geothermal research. In fact, I’d like to see more than that put into it. But at least it’s better than nothing, which is basically where things stand now. And considering how immense the potential payoff is, it seems rather ridiculous. With regard to CO2 injection, certainly cost considerations are essential. In that regard, my understanding is that CO2 not only improves efficiency but also buffers the corrosive effects of substances dissolved in the brine. The same could be said for stimulating oil recovery, by the way. Many of the technologies employed in oil drilling and HRG converge.
To swampie (06:13:49) : I can’t imagine why people wouldn’t be aware that fracturing rocks is associated with seismicity. You’d think that would be pretty obvious. The more important question is whether such activity is likely to cause a significant event which wouldn’t otherwise occur naturally. That’s a much more difficult question to answer. Most of the places they’re attempting to tap currently are relatively close to the surface and in or near geologically active zones, which increases the risk. But what are the alternatives? Burning fossil fuels has various health effects. Coal mining can be dangerous (and can also have seismic effects). Oil spills can be kind of a problem. Tar sand recovery can produce significant toxic effects. As fossil fuels become more scarce the potential for resource wars increases. So if the alternative is the occasional set of rattled nerves or a few broken vases, I say go for it. Then again, if the potential for calamity is more significant than that, it might be worth reconsidering. But I’d say it’s a little difficult to answer that question if you don’t do the research.
Follow up to my previous post on CO2/kWh
– the article I reference quoted 43kg/kWh
– this seems to be an error…. about 50x-100x the more common value
e.g.
http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/electricity/page/co2_report/co2report.html
this quotes 2.117 Pounds/kWh
– which is ~1kg / kWh
– so the sequestration cost for Coal generated electricty would be $0.10 / kWh